Natalie gazed at the starry sky and tried to remember who she was. She had lost her moorings. It was almost midnight, and the temperature had dropped in Burning Lake, New York. She felt a chill as she stooped to pick up a rock, but it crumbled in her hand. The child’s game, Rock Paper Scissors, should have been called Water Rock Scissors. Water transformed rock over geologic time, breaking it down into tiny fragments and washing it away.
The lake was now grainy in the moonlight, so hauntingly beautiful it broke her mind. Nothing made sense. There were no answers. The water had taken something precious from her. Natalie stood on the crumbling limestone edge of the cliff, with the woods behind her, trees swaying in a cool breeze. Everything in Burning Lake was shaped by the relentless winds and the rippling water. Natalie felt so small by comparison.
If you dove from a great height, the water didn’t soften the landing. It was like hitting a concrete wall. At Devil’s Point, within seconds of being airborne, you might be speeding along at sixty miles per hour, and then, if you weren’t perfectly aligned, your bones could fracture as you hit the surface of the lake. It didn’t matter if you were a good swimmer or not. Cliff diving required great skill and a fearless attitude—feet first, arms by your sides, in a pencil-dive position. Even the slightest angle could kill you.
It was ridiculously dangerous.
It was disorienting.
If you survived the initial plunge into the dark water, you might sink deep into the murk and not know where you were. If the lake was cold, as it often was in April, you might feel an urge to gasp underwater. If you panicked, you could drown. If you got injured, you could drown, since it was impossible to swim with broken bones. The rocks could kill you.
Natalie made her way down the gently sloping cliffside and crouched on the bluffs overlooking the lake, searching for her sister’s body below and waiting for the rescue teams to arrive. The night was filled with chaos and colored lights. Firefighters and rescue personnel had to cross the lake by boat to get to such a remote area, and that took precious time. Most of the emergency assistance came from the waterfront, not the bluffs, since a cliff rescue was too dangerous at night.
Rescue efforts included a helicopter with sweeping spotlights, noisy Zodiac boats, and a dive team in scuba gear. Red and blue beacons from the police vehicles strobed against the trees across the lake, creating freakish silhouettes. It was nearly three A.M. by the time Grace’s body was pulled from the lake.
Natalie met Luke down on the waterfront, where he’d been supervising the rescue efforts. He put his arms around her for a moment, trying to reassure her, but she felt nothing, no emotion, not a flicker. A strobing red light hit the side of his concerned face. She could hear urgent voices, could sense frantic activity going on around her. A group of rescue workers were waiting patiently for her in the water.
She went over to the Zodiac boat that held her sister’s body and dipped her hand into the water. It was shockingly cold. She withdrew her shivering fingers.
There were spirals of black in the olive-green water of the lake. A thin mist clung to the surface. It rolled over Grace’s lifeless eyes and settled into her shock-white mouth, like a cup ready to receive the fading stars. She was so pale, you could count the veins on her delicate eyelids. Her nails were painted raspberry pink, and her pretty blond hair made paisley swirls over her bloodless cheeks.
The shock of it—the cold, sharp shock—jabbed at Natalie repeatedly, like a bone knife. The terror was hard to describe. She held Grace’s freezing cold hand for as long as the rescue team would let her. She tried to undo what had happened. She tried to unpack and reassemble it. She willed her teeth to stop chattering while her mind spun around in circles, thinking it could reverse time.
You’re police, her father once told her. You can’t afford self-pity.
She released a choked sob, and then buttoned up tight.
Two portable klieg lights onshore lit the entire scene. This side of the lake was a designated swim area, with lifeguard towers, restrooms, and a boardwalk. The snack bar had been converted into a temporary command post. Members of the BLPD were out in force. Firemen from the surrounding towns, an ambulance crew, volunteer search-and-rescue organizations, and the New York DWW Forest Rangers had all come to help. The DWW had set up the dive rescue effort—Jimmy Marconi, Samuel, and the rest. They had pulled Grace’s body out of the water, and now they waited patiently for her to release Grace’s hand.
“You ready?” Jimmy asked softly, and Natalie nodded.
She could feel a growing weakness in her knees as she waded away from the boat, away from Grace. She caught her reflection in the rippling water.
One of the rescue workers was rinsing the mud off his hands. He had peeled down the top of his wet suit, revealing his muscular torso. His arms were bare, and she could see them reflected in the ruffling water. She blinked, unsure of what she was looking at. Two bare arms in the water’s undulating surface. The man’s left arm had a birthmark nestled in the fleshy inner elbow. A port-wine startled butterfly.
She looked up, up, up … all the way up. It was Samuel Winston. She’d never seen him out of his long-sleeved wet suit or his DWW vinyl jacket before. She’d never seen his bare arms. Back in college, during their one boring date, he’d worn a flannel shirt and peacoat, since it was early winter. Natalie hadn’t bumped into him again until years later, when she was a rookie cop and he was a seasoned ranger.
Now Samuel gave her a genuinely sympathetic look and said, “I’m sorry for your loss, Natalie.”
She stared at him. She’d known him for years, and yet, now that she looked at him, she realized what a complete stranger he was—medium-length brown hair, hazel eyes, approximately five eleven, athletic and fit, a good-looking married guy in his late thirties. His blue baseball cap bore the DWW logo.
Words floated through her tangled brain but she couldn’t capture them quickly enough. Her thoughts were all twisted up inside her head. Her tongue felt dead. Her nostrils flared from the stench of a raccoon carcass, twenty-one years ago. Samuel’s eyes were like a brilliant mist coalescing into two piercing points.
Some of the rangers were gathering up their gear—portable oxygen tanks, first aid kits, respiratory kits—while others slowly dragged the boat ashore. Now Samuel walked away from Natalie and headed for the waterfront parking lot, while she stared after him. Like Joey used to say, When all possibilities are eliminated, whatever remains is the answer.